author
Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Arizona
Created as part of the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project, this Arizona writers’ group helped turn local history, travel writing, and folklore into one of the classic state guides of the era. Their work captures Arizona at a vivid moment in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
1 Audiobook
San Xavier Del Bac, Arizona: A Descriptive and Historical Guide
by Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Arizona
About the author
The Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Arizona was not a single author but a team of researchers and writers working under the broader Federal Writers' Project, a New Deal effort launched during the Great Depression. The project was designed to give work to unemployed writers and other white-collar workers while producing books, guides, and documentary writing about American places and lives.
This Arizona unit is best known for compiling Arizona: A State Guide, published in 1940 as part of the American Guide Series. The book brought together history, culture, practical travel information, and descriptions of towns, roads, and landscapes across the state. Later editions and reprints helped keep the guide in circulation, showing how durable the project’s research and writing proved to be.
Because the credited “author” is a government writers’ program rather than an individual person, there is no single personal biography or official portrait to point to. What stands out instead is the collective voice of the project: curious, wide-ranging, and deeply interested in preserving the character of Arizona for future readers.